The Primal Hunter

Jake was in a hurry to get back to the Count’s chamber, as he had a bad feeling in his gut. And no, it wasn’t from just being the center of attention and feeling like that time when he was a kid and was in a school play, with all the parents staring at him. Instead, this kind of bad feeling was the kind he got when someone was about to steal his shit.

Okay, it was only was like that in retrospect. Because when Jake made it through the trap-room and into the chamber, he saw the state of the room. The silver coffin and altar were gone. He had only been gone for a few minutes to hunt down the Count down, and someone had taken that opportunity to rob him of his rightful loot?

Yeah, that didn’t fly with him.

His senses spread in the room as Jake focused on Sense of the Malefic Viper and Hunter’s Tracking both. There was no fucking way he was going to let the damn thief get away with it. Jake smelled the air and felt the mana and soon picked up on something.

There were three traces of beings in the chamber. The most powerful were the Count’s, then Jake’s, and finally one far fainter. No doubt the thief. He tried to sense the mana type used, and it felt faintly familiar… it was… shadow mana?

Jake suddenly remembered someone. He had seen a member of the Court of Shadows steal that Hunter Insignia when someone was forced to teleport out less than an hour ago at the lowest level of the tower. His intuition told him he was right, which gave Jake an excellent starting point.

He knew assassins were good at hiding, but Jake had a secret weapon: an obscene amount of perception.

Focusing on his Hunter’s Tracking, Jake felt a faint trace leading out of the chamber. The thief had just run in, took the coffin and altar, and then run out again. Jake knelt down and saw a faint footprint that still had a bit of energy around it and took a good whiff.

I’m coming for you.

He turned and followed the scent and the traces of mana still in the air. Every living thing left faint traces in their wake. Their presences passively soaked the environment, energy was burned and expunged as they moved, and of course, all the good old physiological clues, such as smell, were also left behind.

Of course, there were also ways to hide these trails. Any kind of stealth skill made one give off fewer traces and masked your presence. However, ultimately, this was done through magic, and through magic, one could still uncover these traces. This is to say, it came down to a contest between the tracker and the one being tracked. If the one being chased was more powerful and had better stealth capabilities than the one tracking them had tracking capabilities, they would escape.

Jake didn’t really have exceptional tracking skills. He had his Sense of the Malefic Viper, but that wasn’t really a tracking skill. His only real skill was Hunter’s Tracking at uncommon-rarity. He didn’t have any experience with tracking things before the system either, so he couldn't really track anything without magic.

However, all of this didn’t matter when one could just brute force the entire thing with a perception stat so much higher than reasonable at his level and a thief that was simply far too weak in comparison.

Jake ran through the trap room and stopped as he reached the crossroad. He knelt down and sensed his environment once more. He went straight.

For several reasons, he was also now confident his target was male. While he couldn’t identify the figure he had seen steal the Insignia earlier as either male or female, he was sure it was a man now. Faint traces of a footprint were left on the floor, indicating a man due to their size, and the smell also told him it was more likely to be a male.

Rushing forward, he weaved through the halls, and the further he got from the chamber, the more obvious the traces got. One had to remember it was only a handful of minutes since Jake had killed the Count and the thief even became able to steal the coffin, so the person didn’t have that long of a headstart.

Jake eventually reached the atrium again. It quickly became apparent the thief had fled down to a lower floor and hidden, likely among the crowd. This meant it became a bit harder for Jake to track as the traces became mixed with those of others, but by now, he was confident that he could recognize the thief’s presence if he saw them.

He went three floors down by jumping off the balcony and felt the trail continued from there and down another two flights of stairs. The thief had clearly been in a hurry, and detecting the traces was easier than ever.

Storming down, he followed them until he heard people in the distance. Quite a lot of them. Through his sphere, he spotted a room through a few walls with around fifteen people in it. Some of them he recognized as observers of his battle earlier. In fact, he recognized all of them but three.

a display room. Or, as the recorded projection earlier had called it, a hidden treasury. Though calling it a hidden treasury was kind

in

no doubt about it. Knowing the target was cornered, Jake just casually walked into the large room with the

think you need to focus more on the leftmost quadrant and open up the

trigger that thing

it? Hm, what if

in as he checked the gate and saw the message with floating magical letters

the treasury and obtain what

at that moment someone suddenly screamed out in pain as red runes appeared all over her body,

head. The only ones in distress were her party members who tried to help her, but in the end, the

in a red robe, wielding a staff with a red gem embedded in the head, giving off faint traces of fire-affinity mana, stood there, staring at the gate, not seeming to mind the ruckus from the curse earlier. Everything about him screamed fire mage. Clearly, he had changed his clothes and hidden among the crowd. Or maybe he was genuinely trying to solve the puzzle, just like everyone else, and was there for that, but that didn’t change the fact that

name of the game, but

way at the back of the room, Expert Stealth active as he hadn’t wanted to attract

trying to be stealthy but did quite the opposite as he infused his

how he had killed the Count not long ago, and the stat boost had helped him track his target faster; he was good. Also… honestly… Jake was beginning to have enough

him before and instantly backed away. The ones who hadn’t seen him before backed away even more than the others due

and hoisted him up, so his feet

back,” Jake said, looking into the eyes

“Wha!? You have the wrong person! I’ve never stolen

is trying to rob me! This is just an excuse! I haven’t done a

Jake said, staring into his

“I told you, I-“

“4…”

around, seemingly looking for some kind of assistance from

that a few from the crowd looked doubtful. It was understandable. No one had any proof, and it was just Jake’s word against the thief’s.

“3…”

ridiculous! Is this really what the world has turned to? Do we really allow

“2..”

some people begin to move away. No one went for their weapons. Being a D-grade of Earth this ‘early’ after the integration meant you weren’t

“How can you just-“

“1…”

kill him, or the thief would be forced to activate the Insignia and leave the Treasure Hunt. Both were bad options for him,

fucking around. The thief’s eyes changed as he

had a good working relationship,” the thief said, his voice no longer the same shrill one from before that sounded